Proverbial Wisdom: Trust In The Lord

 Read Proverbs 3

One of the promises we have a tendency to forget that Jesus gave us is the promise of an abundant life.  One way to accomplish the abundant life is to obey God and His commandments.  God promises us a long life if we follow them but if we really look at the commandments it makes common sense for us to follow them as well.  It’s only humanly reasonable that we don’t steal or lie to each other.  It makes reasonable sense for us not to covet someone else’s things because it brings up feelings of jealousy and envy.  We should honor our parents because it will help us to learn from their experiences.  When we look at the majority of God’s commandments, we see that they are instructions for living and if we really look at them closely, we can see how they will lead us to a peaceful life.

We have a challenge in verses 3 and 4 to lead truthful and merciful lives.  These attributes are not just honored by God, but also by men as well.  Someone who is truthful and someone who shows mercy and kindness to others is always held in high esteem.

Verses 5 and 6 are the best known set of Scriptures in the Proverbs.  The beauty of these two verses is that they are so simple!  We should not depend on our own knowledge but we need to recognize God and ask for His guidance in all things.  Notice that it should be all things that we need to seek Him.  It’s so easy for us as His children to “shut” God out of certain aspects of our life.  He is God.  He is omnipresent.  We can never truly “shut” God out of any part of our lives.  We always need to look and see how God is moving in our life and acknowledge those movements.  Sometimes we attribute the “bad” things in our life to acts of the enemy.  Have you ever thought that maybe God sometimes allowed those “bad” things to happen to move us into the place that He wants us.  Did you lose a job?  Maybe God no longer wanted you where you were and wanted to move you somewhere else.  There are many different scenarios in our life where God could be moving and we need to acknowledge Him and how He is leading in our lives.  For instance, in my life, I asked God to help me with my finances.  Many people would be looking for money to begin to appear or maybe get a raise at their place of employment.  The way that God did it for me was that He gave me the opportunity to work overtime.  Some people would complain because of the longer hours but they would have missed the blessing of the answered prayer from God.  Not only did He bless me with the additional finances but through the overtime, I had extended time with some coworkers I normally don’t see on a regular basis and was able to grow our relationship.  In all our ways, we need to acknowledge God and to know that He is always working in our life.

Verses 7 and 8 should really be held today.  Especially in light after what we have just seen in our nation over the past few days.  Look at this most recent presidential debate on how we are not supposed to act.  We as followers of Christ should never consider ourselves wise but humble ourselves and realize that we always have much more to learn.  Today’s society is rampant with a culture that “I always have to be right.”  Arguments exist constantly in the world of social media, the public, and sadly, inside the church.  There are many dear pastoral friends that I know that will not talk to each other just because of the fact that they disagree with each other’s eschatology.  They won’t even discuss the topic civilized because the attitude amongst each other is that one or the other has to be “right” all the time.  God never wants us to puff ourselves up as wise.  In fact, God used the wisest person besides Christ to deliver that message to us.  There is always opportunity for us to learn and we should always understand that we can never fully understand any topic.  A wise person is one who understands that there is so much more to learn.

Verses 9 and 10 should look familiar to those who just read the recent devotion of “Called To Give”.  In these verses we are encouraged to give of our firstfruits unto God.  Everything that we receive in our lives, we should always give first unto God.  Dave Ramsey in his Financial Peace course challenges us that when we are paid, the very first thing that should be taken from the paycheck is a tithe.  We should not take out other bills, etc. first until we have accounted for our “firstfruits” unto God.  God is faithful in His promises.  In these verses God promises us that if we honor Him with our firstfruits that He will fill our barns to where they are overflowing.  Now this doesn’t mean that God will bless us with riches (which He may as well).   It does mean that God can bless us in so many ways.  Again, as Christians, we need to keep our eyes open to see how God is moving in our lives, to acknowledge Him, and to thank Him for the abundance amount of blessings He gives us as we give unto Him.

As I stated previously, when hard times come, we should not immediately give credit to the enemy for it.  Sometimes the rough times actually come from God because it could be His chastening.  God does not chasten us to punish us or to be cruel to us.  God chastens us strictly because He loves us.  God chastens us to get our attention and to bring us back to Him.  Just as a loving parent does to their child, God will discipline us solely on the fact that He loves us and wants only the best for us.  We must pray and ask, “God, is this happening in my life because of something you want me to correct.”  If you are living in sin, there is a large chance that the rough times that are happening in your life is because of the chastening of God.  Again, the Christian should not fear these things, but rejoice in them because we have a loving Father that does not want to see bad things happen to us but only see the positive happen in our lives.

Verses 13 through 24 give us a great illustration of how valuable and worthy wisdom is.  It is one of the most precious things we can ever have in our life.  If we are wise and strive to obtain wisdom, it will lengthen our day and make us wiser in life all around.  With wisdom also comes discretion though.  Being discreet in our life will protect us from a lot of heartache.  In fact, if we are wise and hold to the promises and commandments of God, we will sleep easy.

Proverbs 3 ends in some awesome reassurance and a challenge.  It reassures us in verses 25 and 26 that we should never fear when troubles and trials come our way.  God will always be with us and He will never leave us.

We are then given the challenge in a summed up way, to treat our neighbors not only like we would have people treat us, but we should treat them better.  It gives us the challenge to be good to others and to lead a life of blessing unto others.